IPCC Climate Report: world has 10 years to ward off global warming disaster
The report was signed off on by the IPCC delegates on Saturday afternoon in the South Korean city of Incheon after a marathon six days of talks – including an overnighter to end the event.
One delegate who asked not to be identified said the process looked to be “doomed” after delegates from Saudi Arabia objected to the draft report and began “bashing the desk”.
For the first time in a IPCC report, the authors included social and economic impacts. That marked “the end of magical thinking” that sustainable development goals and poverty reduction could be divorced from climate action
‘Next decade critical’: Perils mount at 1.5 degrees of warming, says IPCC , Sydney Morning Herald, By Peter Hannam & Nicole Hasham 8 October 2018 —The amount of coal and other fossil fuels the world can burn without unleashing dangerous climate change that will undermine the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and all but wipe out the Great Barrier Reef is “very small”, according to a major climate report.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on a 1.5-degree hotter planet, released on Monday, said limiting warming to that amount remains possible, but only with “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”……..
We’re currently heading towards about 3 degrees or 4 degrees of warming by 2100,” said Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University and one of the review’s editors.
“Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is not impossible but would actually require major transitions in many aspects of society, and to do those transitions, the next 10 years are critical.”
Average temperature rises mask extreme events. Temperatures of hot days are forecast to increase three degrees in a 1.5 degree warmer world, and by four degrees if mean temperatures rise by 2 degrees. Continue reading
S. Korean activists demand Japan not dump Fukushima’s radioactive water into the sea

An insider’s perspective on Fukushima and everything that came after

Science denial in USA government – first about climate change, now about ionising radiation
The radiation regulation is supported by Steven Milloy, a Trump transition team member for the EPA who is known for challenging widely accepted ideas about manmade climate change and the health risks of tobacco. He has been promoting Calabrese’s theory of healthy radiation on his blog.
the EPA proposal on radiation and other health threats represents voices “generally dismissed by the great bulk of scientists.”
“The individual risk will likely be low, but not the cumulative social risk,
Turning to scientific outliers, EPA says a little radiation may be healthy, WIVN.com, By: CBS/AP Oct 07, 2018 The Trump administration is quietly moving to weaken U.S. radiation regulations, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight.
Genetic changes in children of soldiers who were exposed to ionising radiation
Typical mutations in children of radar soldiers https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181005111447.htm, October 5, 2018
|
|
|
Dr Keith Barnham goes through some of the terminal problems at the Hinkley C nuclear power station site
Public Enquiry 6th Oct 2018 Dr Keith Barnham goes through some of the terminal problems at the Hinkley
C nuclear power station site
– ‘Radioactive mud’ test have been for gamma radiation, not alpha which shows up plutonium
– Economics of nuclear no longer viable
– Bridgwater Bay tidal lagoon would produce an equivalent amount of electricity
– France and China are not building any more nuclear power but have industries which are looking to expand anywhere guillible enough to take them
– Tory government have put the brakes on renewable energy to artificially prop up the dying nuclear industry
– this is a project the nuclear industry want, but nobody else does. Activists call for halt to ‘nuclear mud’ dumping off Wales. Campaigners say sediment has not been tested properly and may do ‘irreversible harm’ Among those backing
the objectors is the Emeritus Prof Keith Barnham, a distinguished research fellow in the physics department at Imperial College London, who argues it is possible that large amounts of uranium and dangerous levels of plutonium could have reached the mud when cooling water from the decommissioned Hinkley Point A was discharged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL5mnD6HrzA&feature=youtu.be
USA’s Nuclear Protection Agency, -sorry, Environment Protection Agency , set to weaken radiation guidelines
![]() |
|
New research raises further concern about radioactive contamination from US arms testing
Studies renew worry about contamination from US arms testing, Stars and Stripes, By RALPH VARTABEDIAN | Los Angeles Times October 6, 2018 LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service) — At the dawn of the nuclear age, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration placed the nation’s major nuclear weapons production and research facilities in large, isolated reservations to shield them from foreign spies – and to protect the American public from the still unknown risks of radioactivity.
By the late 1980s, near the end of the Cold War, federal lands in South Carolina, Tennessee, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio and Washington state, among other places, were so polluted with radionuclides that the land was deemed permanently unsuitable for human habitation.
That much has long been accepted as a price for the nation’s nuclear deterrent. But a far more complex problem could emerge if recent research is correct.
Studies by a Massachusetts scientist say that invisible radioactive particles of plutonium, thorium and uranium are showing up in household dust, automotive air cleaners and along hiking trails outside the factories and laboratories that for half a century contributed to the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.
The findings provide troubling new evidence that the federal government is losing control of at least some of the radioactive byproducts of the country’s weapons program.
Marco Kaltofen, a nuclear forensics expert and a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said he collected samples from communities outside three lab sites across the nation and found a wide variation of particle sizes. He said they could deliver lifelong doses that exceed allowable federal standards if inhaled.
“If you inhale two particles, you will exceed your lifetime dose under occupational standards, and there is a low probability of detecting it,” he said.
A peer-reviewed study by Kaltofen was published in its final form in May in Environmental Engineering Science.
Kaltofen, who also is the principal investigator at the nuclear and chemical forensics consulting firm Boston Chemical Data Corp., released a second study in recent weeks.
The Energy Department has long insisted that small particles like those collected by Kaltofen deliver minute doses of radioactivity, well below typical public exposures.
One of the nation’s leading experts on radioactivity doses, Bruce Napier, who works in the Energy Department’s lab system, said the doses cited by Kaltofen would not pose a threat to public health.
Such assurances have been rejected by nuclear plant workers, their unions and activists who monitor environmental issues at nearly every lab and nuclear weapons site in the nation.
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, cited a long history of denial about the claims of “down winders,” the residents of Western states who were exposed to radioactive fallout from atmospheric weapons testing.
“We cannot trust self-reporting by the Department of Energy,” he said. “I don’t accept that low levels of radioactivity have no risk.”
Tom Carpenter, executive director of another watchdog group, the Hanford Challenge in central Washington, said as recently as last year that the Energy Department released an unknown quantity of radioactive particles during demolition of a shuttered weapons factory, the Plutonium Finishing Plant.
After a series of three releases during 2017, the Energy Department shut down the demolition and has yet to resume it. Forty-two workers were exposed in the incidents.
“If you work in a coal mine, you go home with coal dust on you,” Carpenter said. “Same with a textile mill; you go home with cotton dust. These Hanford workers went home with plutonium dust.”
The second study by Kaltofen, completed in August, reported that fairly high radioactivity levels were found in 30 samples from the communities around the Hanford nuclear site, near Richland, Wash. The samples found contamination on personal vehicles driven inside the Hanford site that would leave mechanics exposed if they worked around the vehicles, the report said.
Kaltofen also reviewed an internal study in March by an Energy Department contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, that found a calculated potential dose of 95 millirem for workers, roughly 10 times higher than the federal Environmental Protection Agency standard.
Kaltofen said a broader independent study should look at residual contamination around Hanford. An Energy Department spokesman at the Hanford site said the office had no comment on the studies.
For his studies, Kaltofen collected samples outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the former Rocky Flats weapons plant near Denver and the Hanford site.
The samples were collected from the crawl spaces of homes, a trailer park office, vacuum cleaner bags, automotive air filters, furnace filters and along a hiking trail.
He subjected those samples to electronic microscopy analysis to determine exactly what type of element was emitting radiation. He identified isotopes of cesium, thorium, uranium and plutonium, all the results of building nuclear weapons parts.
The communities surrounding these facilities have long adapted to the reality that they are near radioactivity, though they are not willing to take risks that compromise their health. Kaltofen’s sampling found some very high levels of contamination in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon, a recreational area near a community pool and skate park………
A worker’s exposure to radioactivity, such as walking by a radioactive substance or having particles cling to clothing, is checked by monitors and badges worn by workers at plant sites. Such exposure is like a medical X-ray, which delivers a momentary dose. But inhaling a small particle of plutonium or thorium can go unnoticed by such monitors and deliver a lifetime of alpha radiation right next to lung tissue, Kaltofen said.
“You can walk through a portal monitor without setting it off but you can get a substantial amount of energy from particles in the body,” he said. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/studies-renew-worry-about-contamination-from-us-arms-testing-1.550707#.W7pnK–LpJ4.twitter
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks about breaking USA-North Korea stalemate
POMPEO: U.S., N.KOREA HOPE TO BREAK NUCLEAR STALEMATE https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Pompeo-US-NKorea-hope-to-break-nuclear-stalemate-568823
BY REUTERS OCTOBER 7, 2018 EOUL, – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his trip to Pyongyang, aimed at breaking a stalemate in nuclear negotiations between the two countries.
The very bad news about what space travel can do to your gut
Deep-Space Radiation Could Damage Astronauts’ Guts By | October 4, 2018 Deep-space missions, to Mars and beyond, could spell trouble for astronauts, according to new research showing that cosmic radiation can damage the digestive tract, stomach and colon.
Spending weeks or months in space can lead to muscle loss, deterioration in cognitive ability and bone formation, and even vision problems for astronauts. As we prepare to send astronauts deeper into space, researchers are investigating how these even-longer journeys will affect the human body.
“While short trips, like the times astronauts traveled to the moon, may not expose them to this level of damage, the real concern is lasting injury from a long trip, such as a Mars [mission] or other deep-space missions, which would be much longer,” Kamal Datta, the study’s lead investigator and project leader of the NASA Specialized Center of Research (NSCOR) at Georgetown University Medical Center, said in a statement. [What Does Space Travel Do to Your Gut Microbes? (Video)]
To simulate how galactic cosmic radiation in deep space will affect future astronauts, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center studied radiation’s impact on the small intestine of mice. Their findings suggest that exposure to a low dose of iron radiation could cause serious gastrointestinal (GI) damage, as well as tumor growth in the stomach and colon, according to the statement………
The radiation appeared to cause permanent damage, according to the study. Also, the researchers suggested that exposure to heavy ions may cause similar damage responses in other organs.
“With the current shielding technology, it is difficult to protect astronauts from the adverse effects of heavy-ion radiation,” Datta said. “Although there may be a way to use medicines to counter these effects, no such agent has been developed yet.”……
The findings were published Monday (Oct. 1) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. https://www.space.com/42018-deep-space-travel-damage-astronauts-gut.html
Coalition calls to “Make nuclear waste site Ottawa Valley election issue”



It asks candidates to support efforts to petition the federal government to move the proposed radioactive nuclear disposal site “much farther away” from the Ottawa River and to use more-secure containment methods.
“Your constituents are very worried that large amounts of radioactive waste could contaminate the Ottawa River if these plans are not changed,” says the letter. That would affect the drinking water of millions of people.
The letter points out the contract includes the requirement to “seek the fastest, most cost-effective means” to dispose of all the radioactive waste that has been accumulating at Chalk River and other federal nuclear sites. The contract also includes decommissioning and entombing the nuclear reactor at Rolphton, which the coalition calls inappropriate.
The letter says the proposed 27-acre containment “mound” will contain up to one million cubic metres of radioactive nuclear waste, including materials transported in from other Canadian decommissioned nuclear sites. It is to be covered over by a combination of sand, stone, gravel and topsoil that could reach about 25 metres high.
The coalition is particularly concerned because the location is directly over an active earthquake zone, above porous and fractured rock, and less than a kilometre from the Ottawa River. It is beside a small lake that drains directly into the Ottawa River through a small creek, the letter points out.
The letter says the danger is exacerbated if the mound is left uncovered for more than 50 years, as planned. Furthermore, “climate change brings unpredictable, catastrophic weather that could cause permanent radioactive contamination of the Ottawa River,” the letter adds.
It suggests retired Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) senior nuclear scientists have raised serious concerns about the proposal. It quotes Dr. J.R. Walker as saying it “employs inadequate technology and is problematically located” and “does not meet regulatory requirements with respect to the health and safety of persons and the protection of the environment.”
The letter urges candidates, if elected, to introduce resolutions questioning the process and opposing the waste proposals as they currently stand, as well as the importation of nuclear waste to Chalk River from other locations “as more than 135 municipalities in Ontario and Quebec have already done.”
NRC Grants Key Approvals for S. Korea’s APR1400 Nuclear Reactor, Despite Widespread Construction Delays
*APR1400** Public Enquiry 6th Oct 2018
Power Mag 6th Oct 2018 Sonal Patel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL5mnD6HrzA&feature=youtu.be
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued key safety and design
approvals for the Advanced Power Reactor 1400 (APR1400), a South Korean
third-generation nuclear reactor design. The U.S. regulatory body on
September 28 issued a final safety evaluation report and a standard design
approval (SDA) for the APR1400, which is designed by South Korean
state-owned companies Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) and Korea Hydro
and Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP).
The companies submitted a design
certification application for the APR1400 in December 2014.
Despite issuance of the safety evaluation report and SDA, the NRC has yet to
complete its certification process, however. The first of four APR1400
reactors under construction at the Barakah plant in the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) was completed this March, but commercial start-up has been
delayed to between the end of 2019 and early 2020, Nawah Energy Company,
the operator of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, said in May 2018. The
delays are pegged to training issues. “The resulting projection for the
start-up of Unit 1 operations reflects the time required for the plants
nuclear operators to complete operational readiness activities and to
obtain necessary regulatory approvals,”
https://www.powermag.com/nrc-grants-key-approvals-for-s-koreas-apr1400-nuclear-reactor-despite-widespread-construction-delays/
Nuclear Waste Shipments Expose Populations to Toxic Radiation

Given the number of shipments of nuclear waste traveling around the country, “Pregnant women and the fetus and the womb should not be exposed to any ionizing radioactivity if it can be avoided. This is going to happen. Given these kinds of shipment numbers — many thousands — there’s going to be exposures to pregnant women in this country,” says Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear.
Nuclear waste is shipped past Americans all the time without many of us knowing it. Even waste passing by on a train is emitting radioactive particulates, and some of those can have negative consequences over time.
“It’s like an X-ray. It will cause harm,” Kamps said. Nurses often ask patients to wear protective aprons while taking X-rays to minimize exposure to the radiation, since X-rays are technically a carcinogen according to the World Health Organization. Medical News Today has reported that approximately 0.4 percent of cancers in the US are triggered by CT scans. (CT scans use X-rays and computer imagery to generate pictures of the body to help doctors with diagnoses.)
Transporting nuclear waste products is a risky business for public health outside the US, too
“If you have exterior, or external contamination, on the shipment — which has happened hundreds of times in France, 50 times in the US that we know of — those dose rates increase significantly. In France, on average, it was 500 times the permissible [amount of contamination] on one-third of the shipments. In one case it was 3,300 times [the] permissible [amount]. So if that’s one to two chest X-rays per hour, times 3,300 times permissible, that’s 6,600 chest X-rays per hour,” Kamps told Loud & Clear.
The dangers and unknown challenges of Russia’s plan for floating nuclear power plants in Northeast Asia
Floating Nuclear Power Plants in Northeast Asia? A Daunting Prospect. Weak multilateral architecture, territorial disputes, and natural disaster vulnerability compound the unknowns of Russia’s new energy platform. The Diplomat, By Tom Corben October 05, 2018 Given the controversy of all things nuclear power in the post-Fukushima era, it was no surprise that the April launch of Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant (FNPP), the Akademik Lomonosov, drew polarizing responses immediately (in spite of the fact that its nuclear fuel was only loaded earlier this week). Russia’s state-owned nuclear utility Rosatom, claimed that the Akademik Lomonosov’s safety precautions exceed “all possible threats,” granting it “invincibility against natural disasters,” and highlighted the enhancements to economic development efforts in Russia’s far-flung territories. Conversely, environmental organizations like Greenpeace labeled the Akademik Lomonosov a “nuclear titanic” or “Chernobyl on ice,” a serious risk to the global environmental and human security. Observers ought to regard warily the sensationalist claims of advocates and opponents of FNPPs alike. Even so, it is difficult not to view Rosatom’s “invincibility” claim without incredulity.
USA administration salivating about lucrative sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia – if only they could get over the proliferation problem
Perry has held talks with several Saudi leaders this year, including King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on the kingdom’s ambition of initially building two nuclear power stations. Saudi Arabia wants to ultimately construct 16 reactors in coming decades at a cost of about $80 billion.
Discussions had been held up on Saudi Arabia’s desire to relax nonproliferation standards and potentially allow the country to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, technologies that non-proliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Perry said progress on non-proliferation standards had been made, but that talks were not going as quickly as either side would have hoped. Perry has shared with Saudi leaders that being “perceived as very, very strong on non-proliferation was a most important message, globally,” he told reporters at the Energy Department headquarters.
Perry said part of the talks center on making sure any nuclear inspections would not be intrusive for sensitive areas in the kingdom.
Discussions had been held up on Saudi Arabia’s desire to relax nonproliferation standards and potentially allow the country to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, technologies that non-proliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Perry said progress on non-proliferation standards had been made, but that talks were not going as quickly as either side would have hoped. Perry has shared with Saudi leaders that being “perceived as very, very strong on non-proliferation was a most important message, globally,” he told reporters at the Energy Department headquarters.
Perry said part of the talks center on making sure any nuclear inspections would not be intrusive for sensitive areas in the kingdom.
-
Archives
- February 2021 (234)
- January 2021 (278)
- December 2020 (230)
- November 2020 (297)
- October 2020 (392)
- September 2020 (349)
- August 2020 (351)
- July 2020 (280)
- June 2020 (293)
- May 2020 (251)
- April 2020 (273)
- March 2020 (307)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS